Last week Tamasha theatre company's Bollywood play Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings and a Funeral transferred to the main stage of the Lyric Hammersmith in London. In the West End, Andrew Lloyd Webber is developing his latest musical, a Bollywood epic called Bombay Dreams. Over in Covent Garden, the Royal Opera is a developing a Bollywood version of Turandot.

But why here, and why now? Bollywood itself contains a mishmash of cultures and influences - from Bond films to spaghetti westerns. It is all about popular culture and it is neither proud nor precious. However, the film industry based in Bombay that spawned the term has changed. Twenty years ago Bollywood made socially aware work. Now, says film-maker Shakilla Maan, "Bollywood no longer has fragrance. It doesn't look at poverty . . . It has lost its humanity. It's an expensively packaged bottle of perfume."

That may in fact suit the West End, with its glitz and soullessness. Lloyd Webber's musical Bombay Dreams is in development at the moment. He has brought together the composer AR Rahmen and director Shekhar Kapur. Meera Syal is to write the book. With over 50 Bollywood films scores to his name, Rahmen is an unquestioned success as a composer. Lloyd Webber, rather than contributing to the score, is producing. So far, he seems to have got things right. The question is: can authenticity survive when producers cross cultural divides and linguistic barriers?

In most large theatres in London, the audience is almost exclusively white (regional theatres such as Birmingham Rep do better). But producers are realising that there is an audience for theatre with Asian themes, one that hasn't yet been exploited. The brown pound is strong. In addition, Hindi films sell globally, with markets in the Middle East, Africa and North America. Surely audiences enjoy entertainment that gives them an experience of another culture?

Tamasha's co-founder Sudha Bhuchar says that its shows appeal to all. "Our last show, Balti Kings, had a 40% core Asian audience, and a 60% non-Asian audience. We gained a mainstream audience following the success of East Is East two years ago."

In terms of accessibility, the choice of language used raises issues. Tamasha decided to translate its text and songs into English. Lloyd Webber is doing the same. But are people hungry to experience another culture through its mother tongue?

According to Jatinder Verma, artistic director of British Asian theatre company Tara Arts, "Audiences have had enough packaging. If language is the window of the soul of a people, then how can you possibly deny language as a medium of cultural exchange? How do we approach it? Then how do we use the power of our own medium to try and bring it to our own audiences?"

It should be possible to keep texts in the original Hindi. The kids in my street all used to watch classic films such as Sholay - we would cycle around in a gang singing Hindi songs pretending to be Amitabh Bacchan. The fact that I grew up in south Wales and none of my friends then was Asian or understood the language didn't matter. Bollywood films have other ways of communicating with a wide audience. So it should be possible for musical theatre to work when sung in Hindi with English surtitles - like opera sung in Italian, German or French.

The Royal Opera House is attempting to capitalise on the similarities between opera and Bollywood films. Its Bollywood Turandot started last month with the house's education department collaborating with staff and over 100 students at Villers High School, Southall. This is multiculturalism at its best. But it's still limited to an outreach project in a single school.

With the commercial pressures that the West End exerts, Lloyd Webber's Bollywood Dreams will undoubtedly be sanitised and packaged, but to what extent? Will the audience see the sights and sounds of Indian entertainment, but without any substance? I don't doubt Lloyd Webber's enthusiasm. It is just that age-old process of assimilation in action: it takes a figure from the establishment to give "minority" arts the thumbs-up. There is a danger that Lloyd Webber milking the sacred cow of Bolly will overshadow the important work done by British Asian artists such as Tanika Gupta, Parv Bancil and Ayub Khan-Din. They won't be going away, even if the media's eyes are dazzled by Bollywood for a while.

But many commissioners of new work tend to lump work by ethnic minorities together: they tick boxes and if one group or individual is visible, then that somehow seems to represent everyone else. The media is probably already growing tired of successful British Asian acts such as Goodness Gracious Me. In that sense Tamasha are one step ahead of the game. They have revived Fourteen Songs at just the right time. The play - an adaptation of the 1994 Bollywood blockbuster Hum Aapke Hain Koun - is making waves, and garnering critical acclaim.

The West End potential of this Indian-inspired theatre lies in its popular appeal. After all, the beauty of Bollywood is that it is meant for the masses. If done with care, it should be a spectacular success in mainstream British theatre. If they manage to keep a little of its soul it will be here to stay.